Server/Running

Servers can be quickly setup over LAN by starting a match in-game, however this is not as powerful or efficient as running a dedicated server separately.

Netiquette

Note

Unvanquished is currently a small community. Please don't aim to create a server in order to only compete for players.

Division of players will disallow larger matches.

Servers may be needed in some geographical places to reduce ping delay.

Getting the server

Our standard download contains the server. The binary is named daemonded.

To install on an headless server, you may prefer to download the universal zip, example with Linux:

wget --content-disposition https://unvanquished.net/download/zip
unzip unvanquished_0.55.1.zip
cd unvanquished_0.55.1
unzip linux-amd64.zip

Starting the Server

Just running ./daemonded with a map may be enough:

./daemonded +map plat23

You always need to start a map (here, this is done by passing the +map plat23 argument).

Network configuration

By default the server listening port is 27960, it is an UDP port. You may have to open this port in your firewall or redirect it to the machine running the server.

This is the same port as Quake Ⅲ Arena, so other games derivated from the Quake Ⅲ engine may share the same port and while the engine selects the next port available if the default one is already taken, you may want to enforce a port number if you host multiple games or game servers to avoid the port for each server to change according to the server start order.

Advanced starting

You may want to customize the way it runs, for example change the listening port (here for both IPv4 and IPv6, 27960 is the default port):

./daemonded -set net_port 27960 -set net_port6 27960 +map plat23

Or store the unvanquished server configuration in a specific folder:

./daemonded -homepath home/ +map plat23

Or tell the game server to also look for .dpk files you're distributing on your web server:

./daemonded -pakpath /var/www/pkg +map plat23

Server configuration

A ready-to use server configuration template can be found on dist/configs folder of Unvanquished repository.

You just need to copy the config and game folders into your user game directory.

Note

If you installed the game using Flatpak, see Game locations for specific paths.

The default user directory is:

Platform	Default user directory (homepath)
Linux #xdg	${HOME}/.local/share/unvanquished
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Unvanquished
macOS	${HOME}/Library/Application Support/Unvanquished

• #xdg: More precisely: ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-${HOME}/.local/share}/unvanquished (it's an XDG data home directory).

You may want to edit the config/server.cfg file to change some things like the server name or things like that.

After that, you can run the server this way:

./daemonded +exec server.cfg

You can set arbitrary ports and run the configuration this way:

./daemonded -set net_port 27960 -set net_port6 27960 +exec server.cfg

Options ordering

You can combine those options, but every -option starting with a - must precede every +command starting with a +.

Quick list of useful options

• -curses — enabled ncurses console interface (default behavior is to disable it so messages remain on-screen after crashes).
• -set net_port <port-number> and -set net_port <port-number> — customize the default port, by default is is 27960.
• -pakpath <directory> — load more .dpk files from another directory.
• +map <map-name> — without a map the server will kill itself.

Directories

If installing from the universal zip, the default directory where the .dpk are stored is in pkg/ relative to the extraction directory.

An optional package directory is called a pakpath. Additional custom paths can be added using the -pakpath option. You can add as many as you want.

The default user directory is called the homepath. It can be customized with the -homepath option.

The executable daemonded (daemon dedicated) should be included with your installation.

So, if you need to be explicit on every path, you can do something like that:

./daemonded -homepath ${HOME}/.local/share/unvanquished \
 -pakpath /var/www/unvanquished/pkg

Standard game locations

See Game locations for details.

Script tutorial

Here is a tutorial to make a server script : Server/Script tutorial.

Configuration and Operation

To discover more commands than are listed here, you can type the /listCmds command, and to discover configuration variables, you can type the /listCvars command.

There is command and cvar completion, you can type a first letter (eg 'g') and press Tab to list available options starting with that letter.

If you are in a terminal: Shift+Page Up allows you to scroll and the opposite for down.

You can also search in what is already printed using grep, for example:

/listCmds
/grep map

Server Config File

Here is the template for the server config: dist/configs/config/server.cfg.

The config folder is stored in the homepath folder (see above).

For example on Linux it would be: ${HOME}/.local/share/unvanquished/config.

Ensure your server mode is not set to '2' unless you want your server to be listed for other players.

# Server mode
# 0 - local server
# 1 - LAN server
# 2 - public server

Public servers will want to set sv_hostname to a non-default value

Map rotation and map layouts

• Map rotation — to customize the map loading order and on which condition a map is loaded or not.
• Map layouts — default building locations.

Commands

✏️

Note for wiki writers

Please add common and useful commands, not every one.

Command	Description
devmap	Loads a map with sv_cheats enabled. sv_cheats cannot otherwise be changed during play
listadmins	List current admins in-game
listlayouts	List available layouts (for this map?)
listplayers	List current players in-game
listmaps	List maps available to the server

Cvars

✏️

Note for wiki writers

Please add common and useful commands, not every one.

Cvar	Description
g_dretchPunt	Allow dretches to be pushes out of the way by bigger aliens?Please verify!
g_friendlyfire	Allows players to hurt their team
g_gravity	Gravity.
sv_maxclients	Maximum number of players on the server
g_maxGameClients	Maximum number of players in teams (ignoring spectators)
g_motd	Message displayed to joining players (Message Of The Day)
g_password	Password to enter game

Game administration

Become admin

To make yourself an in-game admin

1. Enter the game make sure you've set your in-game name (otherwise set it in the player settings)
2. In the console, (<Shift><Escape> or the key below the escape key) use /register, it should say your account is now registered.
3. Using /listplayers, find your player number (if you want to use your player number for use /setlevel. Otherwise, you can use your nickname. If your nickname contains a space, put the part before the space.)
4. Finaly, go into an admin console (you may want to launch the game manually) and /setlevel (your number/your nickname) (your level)

It is also possible to modify the file ./game/admin.dat the server will require a reboot to take the change into account, or, you have to execute /readconfig into the server console.

Here are the levels:

[level]
level   = 5
name    = ^1Server Operator
flags   = ALLFLAGS -IMMUTABLE -INCOGNITO

[level]
level   = 4
name    = ^3Senior Admin
flags   = listplayers admintest adminhelp time putteam spec999 warn kick mute showbans ban namelog buildlog ADMINCHAT register unregister l0 l1

[level]
level   = 3
name    = ^2Junior Admin
flags   = listplayers admintest adminhelp time putteam spec999 warn kick mute ADMINCHAT buildlog register unregister l0 l1 
 
[level]
level   = 2
name    = ^6Team Manager
flags   = listplayers admintest adminhelp time putteam spec999 register unregister

[level]
level   = 1
name    = ^5Server Regular
flags   = listplayers admintest adminhelp time register unregister

[level]
level   = 0
name    = ^4Unknown Player
flags   = listplayers admintest adminhelp time register